questioning my impulses to publicly document my life…. when i instagram, or tweet my thoughts (like this), who am i talking to ? and why ?

— steve roggenbuck (@steveroggenbuck) October 5, 2014

Continue reading “Meaning—what I say” →

read to the end; why get confused? / it’s just “me,” talking with “you”

I said in class last week that I have a hard time processing what people say to me in time to come up with a conversationally timely response. So I’m asking you, friends: when that happens, is it because I’m taking the time to be sure that I mean what I say? Or is it because I take that long to process things—to make meaning from their words for myself?

Very often, when I do respond quickly, I talk “at” a person or at a statement—not usually on the same track as the question but intersecting it at an angle, meeting at a point, and diverging again (like words in scrabble). Friends, why do I do that?

“When you’re holding a cup of coffee, why do you occasionally raise it to your mouth and drink from it?” Friends? Why do you?

About that: I use coffee as an example a lot of the time. Why do I assume that “you” drink coffee? It seems common enough, but among whom? I can’t be too sure. So when I say that (above) or something like it, I’m not really talking about “you” to “you.” Even though I’m saying “you,” I’m talking about “me” to “you,” but that is something that I can do for you. I drink coffee. You don’t need me to talk about “you” to “you.” You do that for yourself, even if (only) for having read what I have to say about “me.”

But it seems like that’s where meaning is made.

Because “you” got to tell “me” about “me” above, now “I” want to tell “you” about “you.”

I began noticing in class about two weeks ago that we’re starting to pick up (intimately) on each other’s ideas. And I’ve noticed it on the blogs. It can be subtle (at first). We’re becoming more alike, y’all! One person says something that reminds me of a second person; another person says things that remind me of things I’m saying. But isn’t that literacy in use? Isn’t that a class? Our class?

“I” am not going to make specific cases—for one, “I” would have to prove that “we” are actually paying attention to each other in class and that “we” are reading each other’s posts. What do “I” know? “You” might know. So do “we” know? And anyway, I’ve forgotten some of the specific instances from our class discussions. But, just as if I had made specific cases, you’ll have to decide if “you” are going to believe them.

So why don’t we just write about ourselves and read what other people have to say about themselves? I do; it has gotten “me” this far—this close, now, to all of “you.”  And I think “we” all already do, but we pretend not to by saying “you.” Friends, why don’t we just?

As we endeavor into Week 11 of 15, I’d encourage you to think about this (meaning is made when “you” do). Is something like this going on? First of all, what is going on? Why? How? Are we—all of us—attuning to ourselves/our own ideas by seeing things like our own ideas outside of ourselves? Are we attuning to other people/their ideas by making meaning inside of ourselves, on our own terms—or on theirs? Are we attuning to identified/constructed common ideas on common terms?

(attuning—getting in tune? Harmony? A blue note?)

(Why do I always go meta? Doesn’t literacy require it? When we want to talk “about” literacy, don’t we always mean the “who? and the “what?” and the “why?” and the “how?”)

(Usually my posts are just over 1000 words. This one is just over 500, including these end comments. There’s space for “you.”)

You don’t even have to read this. But if you choose to read it, start anywhere—right, absolutely anywhere—that you’d like. It’s all the same.

Three weeks ago I began writing (and did actually post part II) of what I thought might become a three-part series of posts for this blog. This won’t be the first time that I’ve started a post this way, “I was going to do…but now I’m doing…” But this time will be a bit different, because I’m being a bit more honest about the “because” of the thing.

This is principally a post about what has happened to me recently. To tell these more recent stories, I’m going to draw upon some others. Of course, you can say, instead, that this is an elaboration on the “mesh” that I first started to work with here (explicitly in terms of literacy) about five weeks ago. That’s also true.

Or just have an unhealthy pastry and read for fun; as I hope to demonstrate, you can’t predict how this might affect that work that you do.

Continue reading meta ann doak →

Parts I and III are forthcoming because this is long enough. Part I is to be, in part, a personal narrative about time spent in university buildings and, in part, a eulogy to hard cider. Part III is to be an analysis of Parts I and II.

II

I’m not literate enough to drink hard cider all week—or too much literacy is required of me as student. The point is that I’m not a boozing author, nor am I a student at UVA, or UW-Madison, or UVM (maybe I chose wrong)—or apparently, UPenn. Am I bitter? […] Is Harpoon Cider bitter? (A little bit.)

Since I do attend Pitt, I have some other diversions for the academic week (Tuesday through Thursday), currently: lots of reading, running, and Mineo’s, but I’m also reading reviews on ratemyprofessor.com for non-Pitt faculty. (That’s correct.)

Continue reading Part II (Parts I and III forthcoming) →

I had another post in mind, but I’d be remiss now to abandon the furrows I’ve made in a far and forgotten field just because our class is sent traipsing single-file through the hot sociopolitical cañon. I’m talking about “love.”

I’ve written previously about my feelings, and the intimacies of literacy, ways that one might (learn to) engage with art and criticism. By this logic, to be literate is to be intimate with things, having things right in front of your face and being unable to ever completely peel yourself away. It is not different for personal relationships—among or between people—being in love. But that’s one way of literacy that we might lose.

Continue reading AS IF →

I saw The Hundred-Foot Journey this afternoon. I thought immediately of this blog, and it took quite a bit out of me to resist the urge to begin writing this post on my phone during the movie. Why is that?

First, a look at DreamWorks’ own description of the film:

A stimulating triumph over exile, blossoming with passion and heart, with marjoram and madras, it is a portrayal of two worlds colliding and one boy’s drive to find the comfort of home, in every pot, wherever he may be.

“Triumph over exile,” “two worlds colliding”, and “marjoram and madras”—this is ostensibly one set of descriptors for the preceding film—one enacting the particulars of post-colonial-type cultural criticism in a way that manages still to reinforce a solipsistic cultural dynamic. I don’t want to do that!

I’ve written some already about literacy and feelings, working primarily from my personal experience and with concepts of intimacy, dexterity, and endurance. Referring to The Hundred-Foot Journey and literacies of cooking, I’d like to frame each concept in some more detail.

Continue reading Deux ou trois étoiles →

My parents have told me that I started to read on my own just before I turned three. I called my mom this evening to be sure, because I don’t remember how I learned to read or when, and I have no memory of a time when I couldn’t read or didn’t. Here’s a shortened (and significantly less cloying) version of the story that my mom tells:

I found you sitting on the floor reading one of your books [aloud] to yourself. … I thought that maybe you had memorized it, because we would read to you all the time. I asked you to pick out some other books and read them to me, and you did—word for word. So finally, I took you to the library to pick out some new books that you wouldn’t have ever seen before. When we got home with them, you dumped them on to the floor in your room and began to read them [aloud] to me.

I’m always skeptical of this story. I asked her some questions to determine more exactly what she means by “reading.” Was I reading word-for-word, or was I just describing the pictures in similar language to what was written? (Word-for-word.) Was I sounding words out? (Sometimes.) How did I learn to do that? (Not sure.) Did you teach me? (No.) Did dad? (Let me ask him.  … No.)

And she added, “John, these were easy books, like Word Bird.”

At least in my experience, learning has always been a process of learning to “feel,” which I mean in at least two distinct ways here. I mean it to refer to what is sometimes called the “art” of a subject (as opposed to the “science”), where you can improvise because (and only because) you’ve internalized the parameters and because you love what you’re doing. But I’m also talking about kinesthetically feeling emotions, words, and ideas. Although I cannot be sure, I think that this is how I learned to read (e.g. what is this word like when you hear it or say it yourself? is it dull or scintillating?) Now, still, I have very specific ideas about how things, reading and writing especially, should and do feel (as sensations) to me. And feeling (in both the emotional and motor senses) is really my primary instrument for reading and writing—critically and creatively.